Disjointed

6.30 am: Sonya starts humming "Morning Glory," cracks two eggs in a bowl with seamless precision, beats them thoroughly, pours some green liquid over, and throws the mixture in the pan. Afterwards, she pulls out some little containers from the cupboard, and orderly lays a bunch of colourful pills on the countertop. Her voice is picking up higher-pitched tones, as per her morning routine. She gets closer and closer to the bedroom, opens the door and takes a peek inside, daring:

"Master!" cries Sonya.

"I'm up, Sonya. Good Morning. I'll be in the kitchen in 10 minutes."

"All right, but be careful you might run a bit late if you're over 10 minutes. Your omelet is waiting on the countertop, along with the vitamin smoothie. No coffee today, master, remember what the physician said. It will drain you.

"I got it, Sonya, thank you. Can I have some morning privacy though? Just 10 minutes, it's all I ask."

"In order, but make sure you won't let yourself ruminate," answers the high-pitched robot. That will set the mood for the day."

"Thanks, Sonya, I won't, murmurs the exhausted girl, dragging her covers over her head.

Matilda is pale, slender, and she bears a pair of sad slanted eyes. Along with hundreds like her, she's been released from the hospital exclusively under the care of a Psych-Robot. However, Sonya and Matilda still have to do weekly visits to the hospital and report on her wellbeing. They say there are currently 1500 Psych-Robots in the whole world. The Government signed an agreement with the Ministry of Health to build 5000 more by the end of 2025. The statistics show that the population would severely decimate if they don't reach the numbers. Last year have been 500000 million suicide attempts worldwide. Half were successful.

The Psych-robots - nicknamed Robbies - saved thousands of lives. They say today the Robbies are humanity's last chance. First, Robbie was developed in Tesla's office in Shanghai, by a design engineer, a surgeon, and a resourceful psychiatrist. The team was awarded the Nobel Prize for Science. The world's rates of suiciding reached the highest peak two years ago when the international Government announced a deadly world pandemic. It was humanity's darkest day on this planet. Fortunately, things started to turn around after the Robbies were brought out there.

*

Born and raised in Shanghai, Matilda was first found to have suicidal thoughts when she was 10. Coming from a noble, wealthy family of high achievers, with tracked roots in the Dang Dynasty, her childhood was filled with endless expectations and not much joy. Like most of her peers, she'd go to boarding school on Monday morning and be back home at the end of the week. Weekdays were long, heavy, and painful for any tender brain: about 10 hours of schooling a day, followed by a few hours of unavoidable homework. She never climbed a tree, played hide & seek, or ever run freely around the neighbourhood. The only game they'd play at school was Chess and Trivia.

Matilda begged her parents to bring her home with them countless times. The answer was always the same: "We have no choice, kiddo. There are 200 billion like us on the planet. You want to survive, you have no option but to be one of the best. This is the new natural selection."

Then came her silence, the frailness, and the closure. Child Matilda lost her playfulness, and her inquisitive nature has been replaced with a quiet void. She'd do it all: best at math, IT prolific, countless foreign languages, excelled at arts as well and played piano with precision. And one day after her 10th birthday, carried out with style and grace, her parents found her on the rooftop of their highrise, contemplating the traffic which she was about to join.

"Master, we need to hurry a bit," says Sonya, concerned. We have a busy schedule ahead. Your outfit for the day is laying on the sofa, let me know if you're happy with what I chose. I hope this time I got it right.

"Great, thank you, Sonya," mumbled the girl, oblivious to the meaning of Sonya's words.

*

The quiet Skytrain traverses the Metropole carrying along thousands of depleted souls. It's 8 am, and there's no zest for life among them. No smile, no conversation, no sign of any sort of emotion. This is where the new world got them, and that's what they've become.

The Robbies' mission was not just to protect, serve and keep them alive, but hopefully to re-teach them some basic human emotions. Nonetheless, some of the members of the scientific team were still skeptical about that, worrying that it was already too late.

On the other hand, the smiles and chit chat that occurred everywhere Robies arrived were bringing some hope. As per their DNA, they were friendly and chatty, always welcoming everybody with a big warm smile. They were everywhere now in the world. Every morning you could spot them on the subways or the skytrains of the big cities, accompanying their masters like some frisky golden retrievers: Tokyo, Shanghai, New York, London, Hong Kong, Beijing, Paris, they were everywhere. More recently, they were brought for morning hostessing in big corporations, welcoming employees with a warm hug and a vitamin smoothie. They looked pretty similar to the rest of us; the big difference came from their exclusive androgynous demeanour and their red non-blinking eyes.

At first, they weren't accepted, and people aggressively threatened their world leaders. The great riot in People's Square in Shanghai shook the world, threatening the Government with an unprecedented mass suicide if the robots weren't to be taken out of their lives. But somehow, this harmonious blend between the playfulness of a golden retriever and the tenderness of a dolphin- qualities the robots were invested with - did prevail; eventually, they've been welcomed into people's lives; and with time, they became indispensable.

Getting a Robbie wasn't too easy any longer: The Government had to assess whether the citizen's overall value was surpassing the one of building the robot. In other words, you had to prove that your value as a human would exceed the cost of a Robin. It was cruel, but with a population of now over 200 billion, it all came down to life's natural selection.

Today, the mission of a parent was not just loving and gentle parenting but making sure their offspring will be valuable enough for the society so that they can afford a Robbie when the time comes. Throughout the world, the brightest scientists were working 24/24 to understand the epigenetic alterations of this pandemic depression and hopefully find a cure. Until then, if they wanted to keep humanity alive, they had no choice but to keep making Robbies. Luckily, the robots proved to be a temporary practical solution to keep the numbers balanced.

Matilda was the brightest kid of the family and the only survivor. At only 24, she was working at Tesla as a prolific design engineer. The company was keeping a close eye on her suicidal tendencies and was making sure she would be assigned one of the best Robbies around. Sonya was living with Matilda for over three years now; even though the beginning of this marriage was tough, in time, she learned to care for this kind creature. Sometimes they'd watch movies together, go for walks in the Japanese Gardens or enjoy a tea ceremonial in one of those fine tea salons of Shanghai.

Sadly, Sonya was her only family left after the last waves of suicides of last year. At the end of a long day of work, Sonya used to give Matilda a clumsy hug, hoping that one day Matilda would learn to hug back.

*

Clive was at his 5th suicidal attempt when the Ministry decided he'd benefit from the company of a Robbie. Back then, he was working as a PR for the Government: pouring wordsmithing six days a week, 12 hours a day. He was first diagnosed with severe depression on a ski holiday and put on heavy antidepressants. Six months later, he tried to commit suicide. Six months later, they found him in the conference room in an unresponsive state. He swallowed a full jar of prescription sleeping pills. Luckily, he survived.

Clive's political speeches were flawless odes to mass persuasion; Flowing seamlessly, rising and falling rhythmically within the perfect cadence, his words seemed to change the world. And they did. But not his. The more wordsmithery he'd pour out there, the fewer words he had left within himself. After years of magic wordsmithing lent to humanity, Clive found himself unable to articulate a word. Many years of speech therapy followed, and he was still unable to utter a sentence. He might have just exhausted all the words he had for now.

Clive lived under the care of Story for two years now, and they had a peaceful living together. Story's biggest hope was to recover Clive's speech, where so many therapists failed. Clive wasn't able to write more than basic sentences to express his needs, and this is how he'd communicate with Story.

Every day after dinner, they played scrabble together, with Clive starting slowly to pull out basic words, but that was enough for now. Story trusted that not much longer, Clive will bring out again his beautiful words. However, it looked like Catchphrase was the thing about bringing back his playfulness and joy. He was giggling while listening to Story describing funny things, then trying to articulate himself sounds that were not coming yet...One day, Story used to tell himself confidently...

On the weekends, Story and Clive used to stroll the large boulevards of Paris, looking through the spotless windows of fancy stores, and reading signs and advertising banners. Somehow Clive was a kindergartner again, walking along with a robot instead of a grandmother, discovering the joy and magic of the ABC, and putting his first words together. Whenever he managed to utter a complete word, he'd chuckle with delight.

For one to lose his exceptional talent, it was unfortunate. But for one to rediscover the pure magic of life, it was a blessing. And when Clive was chuckling, Story's chest would brim with joy - the same joy he could sense as it was slowly making its way into his friend's soul.

When the Parisian wind would blow stronger, they'd head to the Tuileries Gardens and fly their kites. Every time they'd fly the kites together, Clive would clumsily recall the Story of the "The Kite Runner," and utter the name to his friend. "Indeed," used to consent Story every time, "that's a beautiful story of friendship, master."

Sometimes, when going to the park on the weekend, Story would try to organize a playdate for his friend. A playdate with a real human, eventually a peer around his age, whom he'd fly a kite with and enjoy the simple things. There have been a few encounters with some fellows, but they turned out to be pail, weak attempts of poor socializing. None of them was yet ready.

For now, it was probably better to be just the two of them.

*

And it was not just Matilda and Clive: It was Anne, Marie, Sarah, Aia, Emma, Dana, Jordyn, Clara, Chris, Andreea, Maeve, Olivia, Christina, Sophia, Tatiana, Akito, Amelie, Selena, Avril, Yu Yan and so on. And not just Clive, but also Allan, John, Will, Judson, Kim, Peter, Louis, Xiang, Jimmy, Sean, Mohamed, Cristi, Feng, Kim, Zair, Jamil, Adrian and so on.

Hundreds of them. Thousands.

One by one, they've all been chewed up by midnight demons of despair.

Day by day, bit by bit, their lives have been reduced to nothingness until they couldn't hang on any longer. Their delicate souls and spirits have been squeezed like water balloons, overridden again and again like a hundred-year-old squeaky Merry-Go-Round.

The void took over the joy; the closure took over the woodland nothingness took over the love. And then they'd give up.

*

Behind countless closed doors of the big buildings around the world, armies of scientists and other bright minds are abandoning their lives on the altar of science, trying to save humanity from despair and nothingness.

In Tesla's biggest factory, about two robots are brought up to life daily to keep the numbers of humans steady around the world. Every afternoon, out of Tesla's gates, a new Robbie will be released and sent to a chosen depleted soul.

Every minute, there's a phone call in the world announcing a missed life.

*

In the corner of a lush green park, a Robot and a human are feeding the ducks, learning and imitating the sounds of nature. On Champs-Elysee, a handsome young man and his red-eyed friend are reading advertising signs and chuckle in awe.

In a fancy tea-house at 612 Nanjing Road, a brown-haired girl with slanted eyes and her caring friend is attending a traditional tea ceremonial; Her quiet lips are slowly lifting in a graceful smile at the same pace with the unfolding of the tea ceremonial.

And when the wind starts blowing, all the parks of the world are flooded with millions of humans running chaotically to fly their colourful kites.